Great Khan in Manacles

At the court of the King of Kings, swart, dynamic Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran, arrived last week news which seemed to good Iranians almost unbelievable. Some natives of America, described as Marylanders, were said to have perpetrated a most shocking outrage in an outlandish place called Elkton, discoverable only with difficulty on Persian maps. In this apparently wild and uncivilized region natives had set upon the King of King's august Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary Ghaffar Khan Djalal on the ground that his car was "speeding"--the natural right of a great Khan. As she should beat any dog of an Iranian policeman who dared to halt the Khan, his wife was understood to have taken a crack at Elkton Town Officer Jacob Biddle. Iranians boiled with indignation at reports that the native Biddle not only failed to recognize the diplomatic status and immunity of His Excellency but exclaimed in the Maryland vernacular, "Aw, this guy is nothing but a preacher!" Then, actually grappling with the Great Khan, Biddle snapped the degrading shackles of a criminal on his wrists. What would President Roosevelt do, Iranians asked each other, if a similar outrage were perpetrated by Iranian police upon U. S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary William H. Hornibrook? True, as soon as the native Biddle dragged the Envoy of Iran in manacles before a comparatively educated magistrate of Maryland, the Great Khan was at once set free and the wise magistrate collected only 75-c- costs on a plea of "guilty of speeding" offered by the envoy's humble native American chauffeur who, with touching fidelity, had sought to save his master. In Washington, where members of Asia's diplomatic missions pride themselves on "being hep to everything United States," the speeding incident was seen at the Iranian Legation to be a piece of trivial yokelry. However, to keep the diplomatic record straight, heavily embossed Iran stationery was got out and a formal protest to the State Department written, signed, sealed and delivered.* Without divulging their reason for so doing the Cabinet of Iran suddenly resigned this week at Teheran after 26 months in office under Premier Mohammed Ali Khan Feroughi.

*Among Washington correspondents the Great Khan is known as "a squawker." Some time ago the Washington Star printed a piece critical of Iran's Government by Foreign Editor Constantine Brown. The Great Khan squawked to the State Department that he might lose his post as Minister from Iran. The Star then struck off two copies of a special edition in which Writer Brown was reported as having been arrested by order of the State Department and sent to jail for 30 days on bread & water. One copy was handed to the Iranian Legation, the other taken around by Constantine Brown to the State Department from which Homeric mirth soon resounded. Waggish Editor Noyes of the Star pushed matters one notch farther by having someone call up Brown and tell him excitedly that by mistake the special Iran edition was being run off as the regular edition, a hoax on Brown which evoked even more mirth. An Englishwoman, the Great Khan's wife has challenged Iranian public opinion by dismissing Iranian servants of the Iranian Legation in Washington, hiring French and British.

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